Dear Breadfriends (12/3/2013)

Hello Dear Bread Friends and Crustfund Members, We’re all back at the bakery from our brief Thanksgiving break, and it’s a pleasure. For me, Thanksgiving was fabulous, and it put me very much in the spirit of gratitude. During our long drive—we went to Boston to visit family—I thought long about our work in the bakery, about our community, about the ways lives can change so unexpectedly. I have to tell you: I am full to bursting with thanks! Every morning I walk out to the bakery to prepare the bread, or to fire the oven, or to stack a load of wood. Liz heads out early to tend the animals. In the past weeks the geese have been flying overhead in preparation for migration, and their song is everywhere. It’s true that it’s getting colder, and we certainly feel it, but it doesn’t dull the beauty. In the bakery, fire crackling, we make up the bread. We listen to music while we work, and we tell stories and jokes, and we examine our doughs together, looking for ways to improve them. The day rushes by, and we do our best to remember to eat! Late at night I’ll head out to tend the fire, keep an eye on the breads as they ferment, and perhaps to make a little music. The baking is a thrill all its own. There is nothing quite like pulling a whole raft of beautiful loaves from a hot oven. They crackle and sing, and they have a glow that is so special that we had to make up a new German word to describe it—Sonderbrotausstrahlung, which we translate as “special bread charisma.” It’s a pleasure like no other. And then we get to bring that bread to you, and that is something else! To know that you are eating our bread, sharing it, enjoying it... it’s startling how fulfilling it is. I sometimes feel that every bite of bread you eat, every loaf you take home, makes us at the bakery more whole and substantial, as if we were once ghostly but didn’t know it, and now our bodies are slowly materializing and becoming real. Whoa. OK.. I’ll stop with the weird metaphors. But the point of all this is simple. We couldn’t do ANY of this without you. We are deeply grateful for your friendship, patience, courage, generosity, neighborliness, wisdom, insight, love, and support. We feel it every day. Thank you. With great affection, Your baker, Stef